Internet Watch Foundation

Minutes of Internet Watch Foundation Board Meeting
Tuesday, 20^th July 2004 at 11 a.m

At Ofcom, Riverside House, Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA

 

Present: Roger Darlington (Chair), Christine Atkinson (joined the meeting at 11.35), Michele Elliott (joined the meeting at 11.40), Hamish Macleod, Howard Lamb, Sonia Livingstone (joined the meeting at 11.25), Tink Palmer, Jim Reynolds, Ian Walden

 

IWF Staff: Peter Robbins (Chief Executive), Tony Fagelman, Fay MacDonald, Brian Wegg

 

Apologies: Mark Gracey

 

Chair opened the meeting and noted Mark Gracey’s apology.

  

Item 2 - Minutes of last Meeting

The minutes of the last meeting held on Tuesday 27^th April 2004 were approved.

 

The meeting noted that all “actions” had either been carried out or were part of the main agenda.

There were no other matters arising.

 

Item 4 – Chair’s report – see attached

Chair introduced his report and invited questions.  He drew particular attention to our developing relationship with Ofcom and the event at Conservative Central Office on Internet safety.  Attention was drawn to Chair’s statement in his report that Ofcom has no powers over Internet content.  It was pointed out that this may not be the case and Ofcom was choosing not to exercise those powers at present.  In respect of the BBC Charter renewal, IWF will be making a written response with regard to Internet content issues.

Chief Executive introduced his report and highlighted particular issues.  The position with regard to membership and the subscriber spreadsheet was noted.  The ongoing membership discussions with a major UK employer and the opportunities this enabled for publicity were welcomed.

 

In answer to a question the terms of the sponsorship for IWF’s Standing Counsel were outlined.

Chief Executive described the work the executive was carrying out in order to produce a quarterly financial report for Board.  A draft report had been tabled at the Board Executive Committee and it was agreed that this needed further development.  Chief Executive confirmed that the changes were being carried out.

 

The provisional closedown figures for the last financial year were indicating a surplus of £170,000 which would be subject to tax.  The surplus was larger than forecast for a number of reasons and these included, a member sponsoring all our planned hardware and software purchasing, EU funding coming in at a higher amount than had originally been indicated, deferring new appointments and member recruitment and income being higher than expected. Board considered the financial position and noted the cash flow implications from the timing of EU funds coming on stream.  Board concluded that the opportunity should be taken to consider using the surplus funds for creating a reserve.

Chief Executive outlined the position with regard to BT Cleanfeed and some of the difficulties IWF had experienced in handling the volume of press enquiries.  BT were still testing the resilience of Cleanfeed and seemed reluctant to issue any release about the development.
Board noted the new IWF marketing leaflet and the work on public affairs being developed through a working group consisting of representatives from member organisations on Funding Council.

The downward trend in report numbers from the public was considered and the possible causes noted.  Chief executive pointed out that the volume of illegal content online appeared to be as high as ever and this was reflected in the number of actionable reports processed by the Hotline.

 

Board noted the visit to NCMEC by a delegation of which the IWF Chief Executive was part.  It was noted that there is a different approach by the US based centre through their application of a suspect-led operation and where notice and takedown of content was not applied.

Board noted the differences between the US and UK with regard to legislation and the UK’s successful partnership and co-operation between industry, IWF, law enforcement and government.  The partnership had provided the opportunity to reduce UK hosted illegal child abuse material to a minimal level.  Board considered the options for continuing to apply pressure in order to reduce US hosted illegal content.

 

Item 7 – Commercialisation of IWF database – see attached 

Chair introduced the discussion paper on the potential commercialisation of the database and pointed out that Funding Council had considered the issues at their meeting last week and would be making further comments back to the Chief Executive.  Chief Executive pointed out that an addendum [see attached] to the original discussion paper would be issued to Board and Funding Council in order to clarify the secure procedures which are in place for supplying the database.

 

Funding Council would be forming a working party to bring together their members’ views and to formulate a response to the discussion paper.  Board members were invited to forward any comments on the paper to the Chief Executive.  Following the feedback of Board and Funding Council views executive would produce a further paper for Board which contained appropriate recommendations on the way forward.

 

 

Item 8 – Amendment to Constitution – see attached 

Appropriate notice of the proposed amendment had been given and the amendment was carried unanimously.

 

There was no other business.

 

This was confirmed as Tuesday 12^th October.

 

These were confirmed as 25^th January, 26^th April, 19^th July and 1^st November (all Tuesdays).

 

Meeting closed at 1 p.m.
Minutes produced by Brian Wegg 22/07/2004